Friday, July 09, 2004

It would probably good to wait until I have a better informed opinion before I write about the ICJ ruling. But here goes anyway...

a) The ICJ makes no pretense to being apolitical, yet the Europeans think that it can still administer "justice". That's bizarre - justice is supposed to be "blind".

b) I really doubt that the ICJ looked particularly closely at where the fence goes, what it's supposed to do, whether it is effective.

c) I've heard that in American law, it's considered unjust to prosecute someone for an offense that generally goes unenforced. Not that I think the fence is an "offence", but the ICJ's clucking at us rather than India's fence in the Kashmir (to take one example), is an example of its manifest unfairness. "We can't create Utopia everywhere, but let's start in Israel" seems to be their attitude. They don't mind if their unrealistic dogmas create chaos - provided that the chaos is far from them.

Afterthought: One of the ICJ's clucks was that Israel should pay compensation to Palestinians whose property was confiscated. I wonder if the ICJ decision notes that Israel already did this (though payment was often refused).

Also, I wonder if the final decision will include some sort of patronizing remark about how "dialogue not fences" is the way to prevent terrorist attacks.

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

About 1 minute ago: Felt a minor earthquake (I'm in Tel Aviv).

Update: Haaretz online mentioned it about as quickly as me. 5 on the Richter.